City, Staten Island must brace for impact of climate change

Staten Island AdvanceExperts are warning the city needs to do more to prepare its infrastructure and low-lying areas to keep residents safe as sea levels rise and the city is rocked by more frequent, harsher storms. Tropical Storm Irene, in 2011, flooded Midland beach and large swaths of the borough.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- As the city Tuesday remembers how terrorists -- seemingly out of nowhere -- eleven years ago shattered the peace and ease we had come to take for granted, experts are also warning of another threat which has the potential to destroy our way of life.

Climate Change.

According to a report in the New York Times, New York City is second only to New Orleans in the number of people living less than four feet above high tide. Rising sea levels coupled with more ferocious storms could force evacuations and cripple the financial district.

Nearly 200,000 New Yorkers -- including thousands of Staten Islanders with homes along our shores -- live in this danger zone, according to the research group Climate Central.

"More frequent flooding is expected to become an uncomfortable reality," the Times states.

Experts are urging city officials to take more aggressive precautionary measures to secure the city's transportation and infrastructure and to protect low lying areas -- pointing to the example of Tropical Storm Irene as a merely a mild harbinger of what could be in store.